Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-04-02
MANUAL TRAINING IN PUBLIC
SCHOOLS.

Professor Davidson contributes to the
Forum for April valuable paper on
Manual Training in Public Schools"
This journal has uniformly maintained, in
the consideration frequently given the sub
ject in these columns, that such training is
best when disassociated from the present
public school system that the latter is al
ready overloaded with textbook studies,
while for training schools proper there is
very little occupation of most inviting
field. The disposition of the public is to
rush to the common schools with remedy
whenever material defect in the training
of children develops. 1t is this tendency
to make the schools, overloaded as they
are, carry all the needs of youth in fitting
for active life, that has handicapped the
free educational system in many sections.
Thus, in some schools in California, house
wifely arts are taught, including sewing
and cooking, accomplishments that GER
tainly cannot be well taught except in
schools adapted to the manual training
system, or in the home; in other schools
carpentery, printing, telegraphy, etc, have
been introduced, and so on through quite
an extended list
Professor Davidson takes the position
that manual training may, under judicious
management, be introduced into our
schools of every grade with advantage. He
presents, of course, the very best there is
in that view. The defects that develop in
our educational system nearly all relate to
economics; mans material concerns al
ways take the first place. What is de-
manded is the practical in outftting youth.
The hand should be trained for two great
purposes-the production of raw material
from the earth, and the production from
such raw materials of things to satisfy the
human needs or desires. The larger por-
ton of our people must earn their iveli-
hood by manufacturing, and that necessi-
tates manual training. But the theoretical
as well as the practical demands culture.
The trained hand that is fortified by the
intelligent brain is better adapted to Sc
curing for the possessor that Independence
for which all strive.
Now, says the Professor, if it is true
that the children in the schools are al
ready over-crowded with work, and if it is
work that is more important than manual
training, the latter must not be thought
of. But he contends that it is not more
important, and our children are not over
worked in schools They are not called
upon to endure h alf the plodding school
toll to which European children are sub
jected. When our system of study is
charged with affecting the physical health,
examination will oftener prove that de-
cline is due to original weakness, bad hab-
its or neglect of parental care and discip-
line. Children in the United States, he
declares, are the worst disciplined of any
in civilized countries, and hence are ex-
posed to greater dangers than any others.
Now, manual training viii discipline them
and relieve from possible mental strain.
It can be introduced without adding an
hours work to the school term. To &C
complish this end, he would DO away with
great deal of arithmetic, great deal OF
formal grammar, the whole of elocution as
now taught, the whole wicked system Of
school exhibitions" and the whole Of the
marking and ranking system. Much Of
that which ought to be removed can be
better taught in connection with manual
training-thus, the very learning of the
alphabet, he contends, should relate to the
formation of the letters by the hand, and
the molding of them BY the fingers; geog-
raphy by map-drawing and globe-making,
and so on. Connect mental with manual
training, aud the teacher can do away
with all that is wearisome and unwhole-
some in class recitations. So far as the
objection that the public cannot afford the
cost of fitting and maintaining school
houses for manual training is concerned,
he sweeps it away by the exclamation
that the people can afford three times the
cost now involved in the scheme of public
education.
It is not necessary to follow the essayist
from this point into the details Of the re
forms he would introduce, the resTrange-